Times Higher Education publishes IRU article on university cuts

Times Higher Education publishes IRU article on university cuts

IRU Executive Director Conor King has a comment piece in Time Higher Education (THE) about the impact of cuts on Australian universities and their budget surpluses.

“Between 2010 and 2016, revenue for all universities rose by 36 per cent, but expenditure increased by 42 per cent. The inevitable consequence is that the healthy university surpluses of several years ago have shrunk to barely sustainable levels,” he says in the article.

“The outcome is more extreme for members of the Innovative Research Universities (IRU) group that I lead. These second-generation research universities, which target excellent outcomes for a broad range of students… saw a 43 per cent increase in their expenditure between 2010 and 2016, against a revenue increase of 30 per cent, resulting in their surpluses falling from 13 per cent of revenue to 4 per cent: a level that will barely support investment in future sustainability.”